Chapter 5

[deckard]

Just one more day before the weekend, just one more day to get this very important job finished. Julia had decided to get into work early and got to the hospital around 7.40 a.m.

On entering the office she was met by Mr Widmark who looked like he had been there all night.

“Julia, what are you doing coming in so early?” he said.

“Well Richard this job that we are on has been on my mind all week and I realise that it is important that we get finished today so I thought I’d start earlier to get on with it.”

“That’s very good of you Julia, I need all the help I can get, this report must be ready or I’m out of job I think.”

“Is it that serious? Richard, you look like you have been here all night can I get you a drink or something.”

“No, thanks, but there is something else you can help me out with, I’ve got so much going on and I think I’m onto something and I need your help Julia.”

Julia sat there for a moment wondering what to say next, is it time to act dumb again, or come right out with what she had found.

“Onto something Richard, What do you mean, onto something?”

“I’ve been going through all of our work here this week and there is something wrong with the details on our some of our Doctors and nurses here at the hospital. Surely you must have seen it. “

Julia had to think fast after all what if Richard was in on what was going on; he was talking to one of the doctors the other morning.

“Are you referring to the anomalies in some of the peoples swiping in details and their missing `treatment details`?”

“So, you have found it too! I was beginning to think that I was the only one who had got it. I have been here most of the night checking through so many files, I have always thought there was something going on but I could never find anything.

Well, well, well, so Julia! Any ideas?”

“What do you mean ideas?”

“Oh come on you must be wondering why these particular people have their details missing and why it is that they’re always here on the same day, at the same time.”

His voice had changed he sounded a bit menacing and Julia didn’t know if he was part of whatever it was that was going on. Or was she wrong, was he just the same as her, just as inquisitive as she was and wanting to find out more.

She said nothing, she didn’t know what to say, and Richard just starred at her and waited as Julia thought about what to say next.

Just as she was about to give Richard a reply the phone rang. It rang for a minute or so and finally Richard picked it up.

“Hello who is it? Oh hello there! I was expecting you to call”

Whoever it was seemed to talking ages and Richard kept acknowledging the person with the occasional Er, hum, and such like.

“Don’t worry George it will all become clearer very soon, I can promise you that,” he said.

The name George was familiar to Julia; it was one of the doctors on her own file she had set up.

They continued to talk and Richard kept insisting that there was nothing to worry about and that ` it would all be taken care of`.

Julia felt scared, what did he mean `taken care of`?

While he was still on the phone she had a chance to work out what to say next. If only today of all days she had overslept none of this would be happening.

“O.K George, Yes, Yes, it won’t be a problem, you have my word on that.”

George finished with what sounded like a final threat and Richard slammed the phone down.

“Now, then where were we?

Yes Julia as I was saying surely you must have some thoughts about what is going on.”

“No, not really, to tell you the truth I have been finding this week really hard. We have had to collate so much information that my head has been throbbing all week, hasn’t yours?”

“You can say that again, that was Doctor George Phellps, he’s one of them upstairs. As well as being a doctor he is also in charge of the panel of people who will be going over our work on Monday.

He has been phoning me every day demanding that we get the job done in time for Monday. It makes me wish I was a doctor and he would be one of my patients that didn’t survive the operating table. He should try getting off his arse and coming down here and seeing what this job involves”.

Say something Julia said to herself, say anything and say it like now would be a good idea.

“Your right Richard them doctors are all the same, they think they are something special but they’re only human like the rest of us.”



“Human you say, what made you say that of course they are human and that’s the problem, having doctors on a panel of people who will make decisions about the service this hospital will be able to give in the future is like having a bunch of baboons up there.

They haven’t got a clue about aftercare, all they think about is

Cut the patient open, fish around remove or mend whatever needs doing, stitch them up and that’s it, job done.

Now all that’s needed is my whacking great bill paying.

If the patient makes a good recovery that’s fantastic it becomes another `well-done statistic`.

Get plenty of them and Phelps and his kind will be wanting another letter after their name or a bigger car to swoon around in.

Then they will write another paper on some new fangled idea they have and before you know it a new book will end up in

W.H Smith entitled `Scalpel Soldier` or something just as ludicrous.”

She had never heard Richard talk about doctors that way before, he certainly had an opinion on them and it wasn’t at all what Julia thought it would be.

“I thought you would never finish then Mr Widmark, I didn’t realize you disliked doctors that much. Have you always felt that way?”

No, Julia, No I haven’t, there was a time when I had the highest

regard for our doctors. I admired their skills and expertise at making people well again. That is until one day some years ago something happened that changed everything I believed in.

It happened then and it’s beginning to happen again and somebody has got to put a stop to it before it’s too late.